Day 2 – Project Transit Notifier

What I did: I emailed Abe from Firebase after the presentation yesterday. I asked him if he would be open to meeting up with me and go over my project ideas since I am using Firebase. He totally agreed! I met him today at 2pm and it was great. He was super nice and showed me around the office. We talked a lot about company culture and the difference between working for a startup(he started with Firebase in 2013, prior to being acquired) and left for a bit and came back three months ago (Google acquired Firebase in October 2014). Abe shared with me his background and his experiences. He was telling me about the co-founders James and Andrew and how their personality compliment each other (James is more people oriented and Andrew is more tech oriented). Abe gave me a great piece of advice that he received from Andrew when he was offered a position at Firebase and Abe didn’t feel qualified for it:

“Let me decide if your skills qualify. I know more than you.” (paraphrasing)

Abe was great and encouraging me and giving me a lot of great feedback for how to use Firebase for my project. It was 100% helpful.

My code to connect to the transit firebase. Its amazing!!!

After I came back, I started working on making my API calls and I wasn’t figuring it out – I looked up different documentations and tried in javascript, but I hadn’t connecting things all the way. I found a python library for firebase and I set it up. I was able to call to my firebase data set which was AWESOME! I couldn’t figure out how to make calls from the Transit firebase. I talked to my advisory and I explained my entire project (I hadn’t talk to her about it in a week) and she gave me great feedback on how I should focus more on how I am going to do the “math” for the long/lat of my vehicle and that we could hard code the data that should be coming from my API.

So like any good programer, I walked away to let my brain process.

Then I figured it out while I was talking to a co-fellow! I tried it and it worked!

To Do Tomorrow: Create my routes and/or start outlining my functions

My Thoughts/Process: Today was so much better than the first day! Talking to someone who know the technology (Abe) and getting their thoughts was great feedback. Also, I was able to talk to Katie (my advisor) and get her feedback. It was exciting to figure out how to use my API. Its funny how am I enjoying my little successes so much.